LINCOLN — The Lincoln Community Garden is looking for volunteers for the 2023 season and is hosting a community garden meeting to provide more information at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Lincoln Public Library.
Jim Sposato, who heads up the garden with Judy Cohea of Lincoln, also is reminding residents that they can have a small plot in the area to plant and care for their own personal gardens.
“We’ve always had that from the beginning, but there were not any takers,” Sposato said. “We have plenty of room there. We would like to get more people involved in the garden. They can help us or have their own area.”
Lincoln Community Garden is in its eighth year and is an all-volunteer organization. Produce from the garden is given to Grace Place in Lincoln, a ministry started in 1998 and supported by area churches.
For 2022, the community garden provided vegetables to the nonprofit organization that included 3,325 tomatoes, 3,585 peppers, 1,363 okra, 472 sweet corn, 229 pounds of potatoes, 106 pounds of onions and 218 cucumbers. Other produce included yellow squash, radishes, green beans, pumpkins, lettuce and herbs.
Sposato already has been at work at the garden with volunteers to prepare the land for spring planting and upgrading the greenhouse. This year, Sposato said he plans to start some vegetables in the greenhouse before moving them to the outside garden.
The typical work schedule is 9-11 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and volunteers are needed to help plant, clean up leaves and weed the garden; repair fences that are damaged by deer; and harvest vegetables. Anyone who is volunteering is welcome to take home produce for their personal use during the harvest period, Sposato said.
The 2022 garden season was tough, Sposato said, because there was a variety of weather all in the same month. Vegetables like constant water, not too much or too little, and consistent temperature, not too hot or cold all in the same month.
Volunteers in the garden each year include the EAST class at Prairie Grove Middle School and St. Thomas Catholic Church in Fayetteville. Trustees from the county detention center also have helped.
The garden was named the 2016 Project of the Year by the county master gardeners. In 2021, Sposato was named Mentor of the Year and Cohen was named Mentee of the Year by the master gardeners.
Volunteers have been preparing the ground at the Lincoln Community Garden for the 2023 season. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Lynn Kutter)
